speak

The story

1. Proto-Indo-European · inherited from*bʰégʾ-e-“to distribute”
2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*spekan“to negotiate”
3. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*spreg-“to make a sound, utter, speak”
4. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*sprekaną“to speak, make a sound”
5. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*sprekan
6. Old English · inherited fromspecan“to speak”
7. Middle English · inherited fromspeke
8. English todayspeak

From Middle English speke, speken (“to speak”), from Old English specan (“to speak”). This is usually taken to be an irregular alteration of earlier sprecan, spreocan (“to speak”), from Proto-West Germanic *sprekan, from Proto-Germanic *sprekaną (“to speak, make a sound”), from Proto-Indo-European *spreg- (“to make a sound, utter, speak”). Finding this proposed loss of r from the stable cluster spr unparalleled, Hill instead sets up a different root, Proto-West Germanic *spekan (“to negotiate”) from Proto-Indo-European *bʰégʾ-e- (“to distribute”) with *s-mobile, which collapsed in meaning with *sprekan ("to speak" < "to crackle, prattle") and so came to be seen as a free variant thereof. Cognates Cognate with Scots speak, speik (“to speak”), Saterland Frisian spreke (“to speak”), West Frisian sprekke (“to speak”), Central Franconian sjprèche (“to speak”), Dutch and Low German spreken (“to speak”), German sprechen (“to speak”), Luxembourgish spriechen (“to speak”), and also with Albanian shpreh (“to express, manifest, show”) through Indo-European.

Words from the same roots